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Lived City (3): Love and Rituals on Cities ‘ Margins

Lived City (3): Love and Rituals on Cities ‘ Margins. Exotica, The Personal, etc. Outline. Margins and Minorities Three Kinds of Margins The Myth of Marginality Margins from Different Points of View e.g. Exotica and The Personal. Margins and Minorities. Three Kinds of Margins.

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Lived City (3): Love and Rituals on Cities ‘ Margins

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  1. Lived City (3): Love and Rituals on Cities‘Margins Exotica,The Personal, etc.

  2. Outline • Margins and Minorities • Three Kinds of Margins • The Myth of Marginality • Margins from Different Points of View • e.g. Exotica and The Personal

  3. Margins and Minorities

  4. Three Kinds of Margins Social, Geographic and Emotional, --overlapping categories • Emotional + Social + Geographic Margin vs. Center – I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing • Emotional (+ Age/Gender) – Eldorado, The Personal • Social – two Caribbean stories • Emotional + Geographic Margins -- Exotica & Vive l’amour • Issues: Their Perception/Use of the City, its Space and Signs, Survival & Communication

  5. The Myth of Marginality • Stereotypes of deficits, deficiency, disorganization and pathologies • Ref. http://worldbank.org/urban/symposium2005/papers/perlman.pdf

  6. Notes: Deconstructing the Myth of Marginality from 夏鑄九’s lecture 邊緣性[如：非正式經濟、非正式部門]擴展，不單因為人們貧窮，是因為在人與勞動市場間的機制，這機制是再生產marginality之情境之基礎。記得無住屋運動中李幸長曾說過：“無殼蝸牛不要人同情！” “窮人不是經濟上的邊緣而是被剝削，不是社會上的邊緣而是被拒絕，不是文化上的邊緣而是被污名，不是政治上的邊緣而是被操縱與壓迫”（Janice Perlman）

  7. Vive l’amour Anonymous, rootless and drifting Lower-Middle class Desire for Love (Homo/Hetero) Empty apartment Desire and Gaze, and re-invention of meanings Comforted by transient relationships which seems like a new kind of “family” Exotica Betrayed, Obsessed, from broken families Middle class Desire (Homo/Hetero) and a need for self-healing Empty home Desire and Gaze, and other rituals Comforted by ‘family’ rituals (repetition and breakthroughs) Our Focus –how marginal desires are expressed thru’ revision of marginal spaces and human relations

  8. Marginal Spaces:Site and Sights • Exotica -- • Voyeurism – of the clients, (with the rule of ‘no touching’) • Routined dances  Christina fetishized/fixed as a school girl.

  9. “Regular” Spaces (2) • Aquarian: Just because they are exotic, doesn’t mean that they cannot endure extremes. It is a jungle out there, isn’t it? • Concert: a place to steal glances at each other or their bodies. • Homes– empty or spare

  10. The Characters’ Breakthrough of their Rituals • Zoe – repeating her mother’s career as a challenge (to overcome her shyness); making a new option for herself • Zoe and Christina – What do you think their relationship is like? • Tracy – refuses to babysit anymore • Thomas –refused to be paid, found out by the officer, who still wants to see him later (clip 27) • Francis and Eric – clip 28, the meaning of ‘touch’? • Francis and Thomas – “But to help me, then?” • Final resolution among the four – clip 17;

  11. The ending • Mutual understanding between Eric and Francis -- Hug with Francis; facing reality – “I found her”  “; I lost her”; leave the job as a DJ—at least temporarily • Christine dances by herself and is able to protect herself –changes the meaning of the touching hand to a receiving hand. • ‘Families’ outside the traditional nuclear families. Eric and Zoe--- a. Lovers and Friends; Zoe and Christina; Thomas and Francis; Thomas and his lovers

  12. Symbolic Meanings Revised • Mirrors: Betrayal & Appearance vs. reality; double identity • The Pet Shop: Exotica • The Green Field: conflicts in color, music, gain and loss at the same time, with inherent dangers; • Photos & Video: Irony, Imply the failure of keeping memory • Eggs, & Zoe’s pregnancy: “You didn’t ask to be brought here…”(Francis) • Home in postmodern city: Tracey’s, Christina’s, Francis’s---Which one is the real home?

  13. Are we voyeuristic? • Voyeurism  emotional involvement and catharsis? • “At Exotica (as in, one supposes, an erotic film), voyeurism is a frustrated alias for emotional intercourse, . . . Egoyan's achievement in Exotica is singularly fitting, as he yokes the experience of the movie audience to that of the audience in his film, acknowledging erotic needs without condemning them, and stripping down the obsessions that color a life. ” http://www.deep-focus.com/flicker/exotica.html

  14. Are we voyeuristic? • There are different types of gazes; • Gazes of control to fix the others as objects (customers in Exotica). • gazes to express one’s desire, love and concern (Mermaids, Hera’s sister not a voyeur), • Self-gaze (at the mirror) for self-understanding. • Gazes can be obsessive, but they can also be turned into birds-eye view, aspiring looks, glances, or flâneurial looks.

  15. Contract and Ritual • Ways to maintain social stability and produce meanings • Can become rigid power play (e.g. the director+wife, and the adjuster in The Adjuster), or merely “transactional” (without human contact; customers in Exotica)

  16. Spouse-Seeking as another Ritual • Problems of this ritual – Power Gaze • Questioned, she is exposed to different types of gender stereotypes • Asking questions with a pseudonym, she is in the position of power, examining, judging and peeping at the others. • With multiple desires: voyeurism, porn, fetishism • Functions of the ritual: • (repetition compulsion)—the tea house –where they met the first time. • Communication and Distraction through role-play; Possible solution • traditional values challenged • Weaknesses revealed (e.g. loneliness, in need of company)

  17. Spouse-Seeking as another Ritual • A virtual space – like chatroom and Exotica! • Breakthrough: • With the help of Mrs. Wu (who is in a similar position; confirms Du) and the mentors • The director’s search for meanings thru’ communication with and understanding of his actors. • 金士傑﹐ • the blind musician

  18. Urban Spaces in the Personal • Du ‘s perception of the city –see the group report; projects her own feelings • Communication and losing control in a semi-private space -- Hotel (with Chen) (oppressive ceiling) • Gains more freedom in public spaces -- on the road (bus, pay phone, ads) and in public (choosing and arranging her own seats in tea house)  bridge (empty space, releasing) taxi • Realizes the loss of freedom in private Spaces –confiding  mirror (when talking to Mr. Wu)

  19. Margins to Flow We’ve seen • Flâneurs, minorities and urban nomads moving • From home to spaces of flow, such as street, hotel, bus/train station, airport, commercialized spaces such as department stores • Disembedded from traditional (family) structure, can they communication and find comfort in those spaces of flows?

  20. References • ３.都市邊緣性之批判 1).神話與現實都市社會學 夏鑄九 http://www.bp.ntu.edu.tw/bpwww/Students/course92_1.htm • Fetishization in "Exotica" http://strangerbox.topcities.com/exotica.html

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